US accuses Russian agents of stirring Ukraine unrest

April 09, 2014 - 10:04:26 am

A pro-Russian militant holding a bat guards a barricade in front of the Donetsk regional administration building yesterday.

WASHINGTON/LUHANSK, Ukraine: US Secretary of State John Kerry accused Russian agents and special forces yesterday of stirring separatist unrest in eastern Ukraine, saying Moscow could be trying to prepare for military action as it had in Crimea.

Armed pro-Moscow protesters were still occupying Ukrainian government buildings in two cities in the largely Russian-speaking east yesterday, although police ended a third occupation in a lightning night-time operation.

The Ukraine government says the occupations that began on Sunday are part of a Russian-led plan to dismember the country, and Kerry said he feared Moscow might try to repeat its Crimean operation.

“It is clear that Russian special forces and agents have been the catalyst behind the chaos of the last 24 hours,” he said in Washington, and this “could potentially be a contrived pretext for military intervention just as we saw in Crimea”.

Moscow annexed the Black Sea peninsula last month after a referendum staged when Russian troops were already in control.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed Western accusations that Moscow was destabilising Ukraine, saying the situation could improve only if Kiev took into account the interests of Russian-speaking regions.

Shots were fired, a grenade thrown and 70 people detained as Ukrainian officers ended the occupation in the city of Kharkiv during an 18 minute “anti-terrorism” action, the interior ministry said.

But elsewhere in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, activists armed with Kalashnikov rifles and protected by barbed wire barricades vowed there was no going back on their demand - a vote on returning to Moscow rule.

In the city of Luhansk, a man dressed in camouflage told a crowd outside an occupied state security building: “We want a referendum on the status of Luhansk and we want Russian returned as an official language.”

The Kremlin’s standoff with the West has knocked investors’ confidence in the Russian economy, and the International Monetary Fund yesterday cut its forecast of growth this year to 1.3 percent, less than half the 3 percent it had originally projected.

Britain expressed fears that Russia wanted to disrupt the run-up to presidential elections next month in Ukraine, which has been ruled by an interim government since the overthrow of Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovich in February.

Ukraine, which was controlled by Moscow until the Soviet Union collapsed more than two decades ago, has been in turmoil since late last year when Yanukovich rejected closer relations with the European Union and tilted the country back towards Russia. That provoked mass protests in which more than 100 people were killed by police and which drove Yanukovich from office, leading to Kiev’s loss of control in Crimea.

In Kiev, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov partly pinned responsibility for the Kharkiv occupation on Russian President Vladimir Putin. “All this was inspired and financed by the Putin-Yanukovich group,” he said.

An aide said police went in when the protesters failed to give themselves up and surrender their arms. Officers did not open fire, despite shooting and the grenade attack from the other side, he said. One police officer was badly wounded and some others less seriously hurt.

In Luhansk, a city of around 450,000, protesters have blocked streets leading to the state security building with barbed wire, tyres, crates, metal police barriers and sandbags.

Andrei, who said he had stormed the building on Sunday but would not give his family name, said the protesters had 200-300 Kalashnikovs and some stun grenades, but there had been no shooting so far. “Once you’ve taken up arms, there’s no turning back. We will stay until the authorities agree to hold a referendum on the status of Luhansk,” he said.